Croke Park will once more be the place to be on Sunday when the Liberty Insurance All Ireland Camogie Championships reach their climax.
Dublin face Kerry in a match up more regularly seen with the bigger ball and there will be a strong support from local fans hoping to see the Dublin team go one better than last year.
Cork feature in both the Intermediate and the Senior finals, against Down in the first and Kilkenny in the second in a repeat of the pairing which has seen both sides win in each of the past two years.
Last year’s attendance of 20,348 was the fifth biggest in history and hopes are high that a strong #GoTogether marketing campaign this year will go higher.
Liberty Insurance first got involved as sponsors five years ago and while they stepped away from the Hurling Championship after three years they stuck with Camogie, focusing more resource and no shortage of imagination on their campaigns.
This summer they committed to a further three years and an overall investment of €2.5 million.
Liberty Insurance has confirmed it is to extend its partnership with the Camogie Association by another three years and a total investment over that period of €2.5 million.
The deal will include exclusive headline sponsorship of the Liberty Insurance All-Ireland Camogie Championships and Liberty Insurance Camogie All-Stars Awards through to 2020.
We sat down this week with Deirdre Ashe of Liberty to learn a little more of how the season has been.
This was the first year of your renewed partnership, what have been the high points?
The success of our ‘Camogie Made Me Ready for the Real World’ campaign has been a real highlight. Gemma O’Connor from Cork, Mags D’Arcy from Wexford, Wexford), Michaela Morkan from Offaly and Collette Dormer from Kilkenny featured in a series of videos showcasing how the skills gained on the camogie pitch can be applied off the field in other aspects of their lives.
The stories behind these players and the commentary they’ve generated has been really positive.
The ‘Off the Bench’ Newstalk broadcast from our office in Blanchardstown earlier this week was really well received by employees and our guests that were in attendance; most of all it was a fascinating discussion on women in sport.
You’ve used regular players in regular circumstances in your tv ads. How has that scored against other ads?
We’re very proud of our association with Camogie. We have highlighted the skills that this game enables players of all ages to apply in real life for better outcomes and this has struck a cord with many people across the country.
The feedback is strong and we look forward to understanding this to the full extent when we evaluate our marketing activity at the end of the season.
Support her Sport has been a strong theme again this year. Are you pleased with the progress you’ve helped enable in Women in Sport?
Female sport has undergone a significant sea change in attitudes over the last five years.
We’ve have taken enormous pride in seeing a new generation of female sporting heroes emerge into the public’s consciousness and become household names up and down the country.
We are proud of the contribution we have made to encourage this change in attitudes and provide a platform for this emerging generation of highly ambitious female athletes.
Over the next three years we will work with the Camogie Association to further raise the profile of the sport though our support for the Camogie Championship and Camogie All Stars; we’ll continue to learn more about the challenges and barriers to female participation in sport via research and insights; and look forward to working with role models and ambassadors across our women in sport programme.
#GoTogether has garnered very positive comment. What would you see as success in terms of Sunday?
We’ve seen steady increases in attendances and viewership of the Camogie Finals over the last number of years, we’d love to maintain this progress and hopefully see record attendances this weekend.
We hope people will turn out in large numbers to #supporthersport but if not, that they’ll tune in at home and watch these fantastic athletes on this wonderful occasion.
At halftime of the Senior Final, the Camogie clubs of Newmarket-on-Fergus from Co Clare and Sarsfields in Co Cork will take to the pitch, the culmination of our ‘Camogie Made Me Ready for the Real World’ campaign, where we called on clubs to tell us how camogie gave players and teams, skills for life.
The winner will take home €7,000 with the runner-up receiving €3,000.
We’ll have 30 flagbearers forming a guard of honour as the senior teams take to the field, they’ll also get the opportunity to meet their heroes before the match so there’s plenty of excitement in households this weekend!
In addition to a full schedule of social media activity, we’re running a ‘Best Banner’ competition and will also be tracking Ball Speed via Hawkeye on the Big Screen.
Is there an All Stars Tour this year.
We sponsored the inaugural Camogie All Stars Tour to Madrid last year, featuring the best players from 2016 and 2017 and which was a huge success.
The next All Stars Tour is scheduled for 2019 with the Liberty Insurance All-Stars Awards taking place in November this year.
Here are a couple of the videos in the ‘Camogie Made Me Ready for the Real World’ campaign which focused on a number of key Camogie players and how their dedication to the sport has helped them throughout every aspect of their lives.
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